The most guarded prisoners in Delhi jails

HT spoke to prison officers inside the country’s largest prison complex about the four most guarded prisoners: Convicted separatist Yasin Malik, conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar, underworld don Chhota Rajan and Delhi gangster Neeraj Bawana.

On the night of August 25, 2022, when alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar was shifted to Mandoli jail from the Tihar prison complex, a dozen prison officers too were transferred with him. In the backdrop of the Supreme Court ordering the transfer — Chandrashekhar had earlier approached the apex court claiming there were threats to his life — prison officers did not take any chances and carefully selected the personnel who would guard him in Mandoli. In the 48 hours before he was transferred, numerous meetings were held within the prison headquarters to identify the team that would guard him. While the transfer of prisoners within the different jails is a regular exercise, such meetings and careful selection of prison guards before a transfer is rare.

Sukesh Chandrashekhar (L) and Chhota Rajan.  (File Photo)

Chandrashekhar is now one of the four most guarded prisoners in Delhi’s three jails — Tihar, Rohini, and Mandoli. Who are the other prisoners whose security is a topmost priority for the prison department? And in a prison complex where around 18-20 unnatural deaths are reported every year, how does the jail administration protect them? HT spoke to prison officers inside the country’s largest prison complex.

The three prison complexes in Delhi are packed. Against a sanctioned prisoner capacity of 10,026 in the 16 sub jails within the three prisons, there are over 20,000 inmates. With not enough space prisoners are lodged in, barracks — halls or dormitories where 10-50 prisoners share the space, and cells — 2-5 prisoners share one cell. But the rules are different for the four most guarded prisoners — convicted separatist Yasin Malik, conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar, underworld don Chhota Rajan and Delhi gangster Neeraj Bawana.

“Until a few years ago, there was only three such prisoners on the list. Rajan, Bawana and Bihar’s don-turned-politician Mohammed Shahabuddin were the high-risk prisoners. They were lodged in single cells located adjacent to each other. And then Shahabuddin died of Covid-19 last year. In the last one year, Yasin Malik and Sukesh Chandrashekhar were added to the list,” a prison officer, who asked not to be named, said.

The different rules for Yasin Malik

Separatist leader Yasin Malik, who was convicted in a terror funding case on May 25, should ideally have been sent to Tihar jail 2, where most convicts are lodged. Undertrial prisoners, who comprise around 75% of the prison’s population, are lodged in other 15 sub-jails spread across the three prison complexes. Convicted prisoners are also given work inside the jail’s different factories. Apart from the elderly, the unwell and those who choose not to work, every prisoner can find employment in the different factories within the prison complex. They are paid wages too. For a day’s work, a skilled worker makes ₹308. A skilled worker is a prisoner who is an expert at their job. A semi-skilled worker gets ₹248, while an unskilled worker makes ₹138 a day.

For Malik, the rules are different.

Convicted separatist leader Yasin Malik.  (Reuters)

“The threat perception related to Malik is so high that being a convict, he was not allotted any work. He was also lodged in a different jail (sub-jail 7) and kept alone in a cell. There are prison guards who walk with him whenever he leaves his cell to go to the jail dispensary or make phone calls to his family. It is different for other prisoners. They do not have a security around them inside the prison. Malik suffers from old age ailments and makes regular visits to the dispensary,” a prison officer, privy to Malik’s security details said.

On July 22, Malik was on a hunger strike inside prison against what he said was his protest against the government. Hunger strikes and protests by prisoners are common in jail. Within four days of his hunger strike inside jail, when doctors noticed a “fluctuation of his blood pressure” he was immediately rushed to RML hospital. “Nobody wants to take a chance when we are dealing with prisoners like Malik. If anything untoward happens to him in prison, there will be trouble in the valley (Kashmir) so he was immediately taken to a hospital run by the central government. We do not allow other prisoners to be around him inside prison too,” said a prison officer.

Sukesh Chandrashekhar, a coterie of handpicked jail guards

Sukesh Chandrashekhar, the newest entrant in the list of high-risk prisoners, has a guard from the ITBP paramilitary force outside his cell in Mandoli. There are also CCTV cameras to ensure that his movement is monitored virtually. With Chandrashekhar claiming that the threats against him are serious (he also claimed this in his plea before the Supreme Court), the prison department has in an affidavit to the apex court promised his security. Prison officers said that while heads would roll at the prison’s top echelons if anything happened to him, the CCTV cameras will also ensure that the alleged conman does not harm himself and pin the blame on the jail staff. The ITBP person, who does not report to the prison department, is posted outside the cell round-the-clock. This is the prison’s mechanism of ensuring that the last barrier protecting the alleged conman is not someone from within the jail administration.

Explaining this, a second police officer, said, “The threat to Chandrashekhar is not just from outside but from insiders as well. At least seven jail officers, who have run the prison for decades, were arrested in the ₹200 crore fraud case, and are lodged in different jails. Many other jail officers are yet to be arrested and are under probe. So selecting the people around him was important. We have now got our best team to guard him. One could also say that the people around him are incorruptible,” a second prison officer said.

Even when Chandrashekhar was transferred last week, armed Delhi police personnel had escorted him to the Mandoli’s sub-jail 14.

The other two prisoners on the list — Rajan and Bawana — have always had the highest threat perception since the day they were brought to Tihar around the same time in 2015.

Neeraj Bawana lodged alone for over 5 years

Top Delhi gangster Neeraj Bawana is lodged in a separate cell near Chhota Rajan, inside jail 2. Even while Bawana is lodged in jail, his accomplices continue to fight bloody gang wars on the streets of the national Capital. Despite Bawana approaching courts and writing several letters to the jail administration since 2018 seeking a transfer, the prison department has maintained that for safety reasons, it is important to lodge him separately. Bawana, in his numerous pleas, wrote to jail officers that he was suffering from a mental illness because of being lodged alone in a cell since 2017. The prison doctors have denied this and said that this was the gangster's attempt to be with his accomplices and run his extortion racket from inside prison.

“There are many infamous gangsters in Delhi jails, but it is different in the case of Neeraj Bawana. Most other gangsters are lodged with their gang members, but we could not take that risk with Bawana. Despite being in prison, he has masterminded different attacks on his rivals. Keeping him alone also helps us keep a check on his activities. Ideally, the other gangsters too should have been lodged alone in cells but because of the paucity of space, we cannot. The prisoners are twice the sanctioned capacity. It is then that we take a risk and choose who among the gangsters have a high threat perception. For Bawana, it is still high, so he continues to be lodged in a single cell,” the second prison officer added.

Bawana’s last alleged crime was on September 24, 2021, when his gang merged with other criminal gangs to eliminate their rival, Jitender Gogi inside the Rohini court complex.

A former underworld don and his separate kitchen

The highest-value prisoner continues to be former underworld don Chhota Rajan. Officials said Rajan, who was extradited to India in 2015, continues to be lodged in a barrack, which is the most secure part of the prison. Rajan is lodged in a barrack — a similar sized barrack in other parts of the prison houses around 30-50 prisoners.

Chhota Rajan.  ( PTI)

In Delhi jails, prisoners are not allowed food from outside. Biscuits, chips, and ready-to-eat packaged food items are available in the jail’s canteen. The daily meals for prisoners are prepared in the jail’s kitchens by the prisoners themselves. Unlike the other three prisoners, Rajan has a separate kitchen where food is prepared by prisoners and approved by the jail superintendent.

“The menu is not different, but the people who prepare and serve are different. The prison department wants to ensure that no one tries to poison his meals. Rajan has threats from his rival, Dawood Ibrahim and the other gangs working from outside India. Rajan is an important asset for the government against Dawood Ibrahim and his criminal network. Even, the Intelligence Bureau keeps track of his security,” a mid-level jail officer, who asked not to be named, said.

Between 2020 and 2022, the three jails reported around 10 deaths and 1,100 Covid-19 infections among prisoners and the jail staff. While prisoners who showed mild symptoms were treated at the jail dispensary, others with severe symptoms were taken to the state government’s two hospitals — Lok Nayak and Deen Dayal Upadhyay. But there was one who was taken to the country’s premier medical institute — AIIMS.

An officer, who was part of Rajan’s security team in 2021 said, “Rajan had mild symptoms, but nobody wanted to take a chance. He was immediately admitted to AIIMS. Naturally, he recovered and came back. He was taken to AIIMS only because of the importance of his criminal cases. Even the special cell and the Intelligence Bureau were taking regular updates about his health status. It won’t be wrong to say that he is the government’s high-value prisoner.”